Letting Go

If you’re at all like me, when you’re trying to select a greeting card for a special occasion, you find so many good ones that you end up with at least a handful, if not more, to choose from. I think the selection process works something like this. You pick up each card, one at a time, and decide if it’s at all appropriate for the recipient. If it’s not, it goes back on the rack. If it is, you hold on to it and evaluate the next card . . . and the next card . . . and the next card.

Now, you have a handful of cards. Some people might simply take the first card that was halfway appropriate and make their way to the register for their purchase. But, let’s pretend this is a very special occasion and a very special person receiving the card. I think, in this case, most people would spend a little more time to really make sure the card they choose expresses exactly how they feel and what they mean to say.

So, you’ve got a handful of cards. Now what? You read through each of them again. You eliminate one or two cards. And you read through each of them again. And you keep narrowing down the selection until you find the one that most closely matches your sentiments.

Sometimes you’re lucky. The first card, or maybe the second or third, is so perfect that you know you don’t need to look any further. You’re in amazement that the greeting card writer seems to have read your heart and your mind. The sentiment is so perfectly phrased that you wonder why you didn’t think to write the same thing yourself in a blank card.

Sometimes it’s like this with traditional prayers. In times of need, you may recite a familiar prayer that you memorized in childhood. Or you may turn to a prayer that you learned later on in adulthood. Sometimes, though, prayers can feel like empty mantras. You’re saying the words, and they’re beautiful and you love the prayer, but they don’t necessarily convey what’s in your heart. You can flip through a prayer book searching for the right topic and, if you’re fortunate, you may find exactly what you’re looking for just like when you’re lucky enough to find the perfect greeting card. If not, you may give up the search and fill in your own blank card by speaking to God from the heart.

Many times in life I’ve found myself in need of just the right prayer. The one that would comfort me. The one that would repair a situation I was concerned about. The one that would raise me up and fill me with wisdom, courage, clarity, or whatever it was I felt I needed at the time. Many times, in my search for a special prayer, I would come across this one:

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory,
my understanding, and my entire will.
All I have and call my own.
Whatever I have or hold, You have given me.
I return it all to You and surrender it wholly
to be governed by Your will.
Give me only Your love and Your grace
and I am rich enough and ask for nothing more.
~St. Ignatius, from Spiritual Exercises

This one always scared me a bit. I’d come across it again and again and I would quickly turn the page. “No,” I’d think to myself. “That isn’t the one I’m looking for. I’m looking to get something. This one’s about giving it all back.” And, like a shopper selecting a greeting card, this one would go back on the rack.

It was only when I had reached the rock bottom of a situation that I had tried for too many years to repair myself that I finally let this prayer slip from my lips. It wasn’t the exact same prayer, because I didn’t have a prayer book handy at the time and I didn’t exactly remember this one at the time anyway. But, I remember coming to a breaking point. I had reached a level of desperation that was so intolerably intense that it was sucking the very life from my body. There was nothing left to do. I had done it all—consulted with the experts, made changes, made changes again, tried one action, tried another action, and another, and another, and another. I tried every known remedy and even made up a few of my own on the off chance there was some as of yet undiscovered solution to the issue I was dealing with. There was nothing left that I, or anyone else on earth, could do. And I was angry with God and confused as to why He would allow me to stay trapped in the place that I was in. “I’m trying to do all the right things that You would have me do. I follow Your commands. I follow the precepts of the Church. I do everything that You require of me. What’s the point? I may as well just go off and do whatever I want in life because I’m not getting anywhere doing things Your way! Why are You not helping me?”

And the gentle answer I received was, “You haven’t let Me.”

And I saw an image of myself as a little girl with a doll whose arm had fallen off. I was sad and crying and I couldn’t wait for my Dad to get home from work because I knew he could fix it because he fixes everything in our house. And when he arrived, I brought him the doll. And he set it on the table. And he proceeded to read the mail. And he talked to my Mom about the events of the day. And he made a phone call. And all the while I was getting antsier and antsier until finally he sat down at the table, examined the doll and the arm and pressed them together with just the right twist and suddenly my doll was whole again. Peace had been restored to my heart. Tears had been dried. My quivering lip was calmed and smiling again.

How easily I turned to my earthly father to remove my distress. How easily I turned over my treasured toy that meant everything to me at the time. With what patience I waited for his help, knowing that he wouldn’t forget me. Why didn’t I trust my heavenly Father this way? As it says in Matthew 7:11, "If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him.”

And it was in the weakest moment of my life that I realized I was being given the greatest strength of my life. But it required one thing—to let God take over the situation. Not part of it. The whole entire thing. I couldn’t demand how He go about fixing the situation. And I couldn’t even demand what the outcome would be. In my heart, I had to turn it all over to Him. And when I did, I suddenly had peace. None of the problems mattered any more. After all, they weren’t my problems any longer.

If I had only done that sooner. And so, now, as issues arise in my life, I try to turn them over to the heavenly Father right away. I’m not always successful in this, though. It’s easier to let go when you know you’re at the bottom and things can’t get any worse. The real challenge is letting go of a situation before it hits rock bottom. I don’t like giving up control. What if things don’t turn out the way I want? What if sacrifices must be made? There’s always that part of me that believes that, if I simply do one or two things on my own, the situation will resolve itself. And sometimes it does. Yet I’m always left wondering how much better it might have turned out if I had let God handle it His way instead of handling it my way.

In the situation that I refer to here, it was a good thing I turned it all over to God, because I would have been willing to settle for so much less than what He returned to me! Yes, I had to make sacrifices that I didn’t want to make. I had to leave some things behind. But all that and more has been returned to me just as I had returned them to God. The prayer of Saint Ignatius, although it was the last prayer I had wanted to utter, turned out to be the most appropriate. It was the “greeting card” I should have selected when I first came across it. It has now become a part of my life. It’s the reason for my peace and joy. And I hope I always remember that.